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Tour of Vancouver Discussion
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| Gustavovskiy |
Posted on 10-03-2021 07:40
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 Tour of Vancouver
It’s the Tour of Vancouver.
Welcome to west coast of Canada where we find the capital of the more British and less narcotic Columbia (okay and slightly differently spelled too). It’s June and there’s no snow around so it’s perfect conditions for us to delight ourselves in the beautiful landscape.
For us but not the riders who’ll have to face a tough race here in the Pacific coast. The seven previous editions can testify that as the list of previous winners shows:
2013  Timofey Kritskiy
2014  Janez Brajkovic
2015  Alberto Contador
2016  Riccardo Ricco
2017  Andrei Amador
2018  Aleksandr Pluchkin
2019  Ryan Eastman
A handful of familiar names kind of make you question if this really is a C2HC race. Well, it is since last year and it keeps its traditional route:
If you disregard the boring, sorry, flat stages (2,3 and 5) it’s all GC decision time. We start off with a 6km mountain TT before passing through two mountain top finishes in Upper Joffre Lake and Zoa Peak with the first of these two taking the epithet of queen stage. Finally a short TTT to define whose climber has the least worst TT support.
As expected, the cream of the CT division climbers is here to contest the event. Let’s look at the list of favourites:
| MO | TT | STA | RES | REC | | MO | TT | STA | RES | REC |  Pinot | 80 | 65 | 76 | 79 | 75 |  Signorini | 78 | 65 | 66 | 72 | 73 |  Ranaweera | 80 | 74 | 75 | 75 | 74 |  Kuss | 78 | 64 | 74 | 76 | 71 | | Ratiy | 80 | 74 | 70 | 73 | 76 |  Cort Nielsen | 78 | 72 | 76 | 75 | 74 |  Marquez | 79 | 69 | 69 | 77 | 75 |  Novak | 77 | 76 | 75 | 73 | 75 |  Garby | 79 | 68 | 71 | 76 | 75 |  Battaglin | 77 | 58 | 69 | 72 | 67 | | Chamorro | 78 | 65 | 72 | 76 | 70 |  Eg | 77 | 74 | 76 | 74 | 75 |  Ndayisenga | 78 | 65 | 69 | 68 | 73 | Hoem | 77 | 67 | 74 | 69 | 74 |  Manfredi | 78 | 65 | 68 | 73 | 72 | Saggiorato | 77 | 66 | 72 | 74 | 73 |  Keinath | 78 | 74 | 76 | 75 | 74 |  Medvedev | 77 | 62 | 63 | 75 | 70 | | Fabbro | 78 | 67 | 71 | 72 | 74 | Mai | 77 | 63 | 67 | 75 | 74 | | Warbasse | 78 | 74 | 75 | 73 | 72 | Bardet | 77 | 59 | 72 | 70 | 71 | | Lunke | 78 | 73 | 76 | 74 | 78 | Jang | 76 | 62 | 72 | 70 | 70 |
The top climbers of the division are here as you’d expect. A pretty solid block of GC contenders is brought by Carlsberg who have Warbasse and Eg who know their around a TT course too. Ranaweera and Ratiy start as strong candidates as well as Keinath and obviously Pinot.
The list of TT prowess is also helpful to see which of these has real chances of aiming at the final yellow jersey.
| Team | TT Total | TT Average | | | Carlsberg - Danske Bank | 501 | 71,6 | | | Project: Africa | 569 | 71,1 | | | Carrefour - ESPN | 567 | 70,9 |  | Glanbia Foods Cycling Project | 566 | 70,8 | | | Tryg - Ritter Sport | 485 | 69,3 |  | Gjensidige Pro Cycling Team | 543 | 67,9 | | | Centovalli - Fiat | 538 | 67,3 | | | Philips | 537 | 67,1 | | | Sauber Petronas Racing | 532 | 66,5 | | | Bralirwa - Stevens Bikes | 530 | 66,3 |  | Trans cycling team | 529 | 66,1 |  | Strava | 454 | 64,9 | | | Nordica - Enel | 389 | 64,8 |  | Guave's Sunlight Cycling | 515 | 64,4 | | | BNZ Cycling Team | 514 | 64,3 | | | Los Pollos Hermanos | 513 | 64,1 | | | McCormick Pro Cycling | 511 | 63,9 | | | Sotto il sole di riccione | 509 | 63,6 | | | Eddie Stobart | 508 | 63,5 |  | Team Europcar | 506 | 63,3 |
Four teams standout as you can see, with Carlsberg having a one man handicap since they decided to bring 7 men. More importantly this list helps us identify the climbers who are going to need some leeway before the final stage, given they’re definitely going to lose time there. Namely Ratiy, Marquez and Garby are not going to find the final stage to their liking.
Finally we have some sprints to deal with.
| SPR | ACC | | SPR | ACC | | Lavoine | 80 | 78 | Wippert | 78 | 82 | | Guillen | 80 | 80 | Cisse | 78 | 77 | | Selig | 79 | 81 | Page | 78 | 79 | | Bertilsson | 79 | 77 | Boev | 78 | 78 | | Reinhardt | 79 | 84 | Redecker | 77 | 78 | | Manarelli | 79 | 79 | Feiereisen | 77 | 78 | | Keough | 79 | 79 | Haddi | 77 | 77 | | Colbrelli | 79 | 75 | Schorn | 77 | 77 | | Altanzul | 78 | 75 | Modolo | 77 | 79 |
Lavoine is the best sprinter present which should mean he’s going to find trouble actually winning a stage. Then there’s a nice number of pairs in Guillen/Manarelli, Reinhardt/Cisse, Selig/Redecker, Altanzul/Wippert (+ some others) and Page/Feiersen. A word also for McCormick who bring a noticeable train for Keough. On the other hand Colbrelli, Modolo and Schorn are the sole hopes of their respective teams at achieving something of worth it seems
Well, I think that’s it. Here’s the startlist. Good luck and see you tomorrow.
Edited by Gustavovskiy on 10-03-2021 08:28
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| Nemolito |
Posted on 10-03-2021 07:50
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Finally a short TTT to define whose climber has the least worst TT support.
Challenge accepted 
I think I would have preferred the TTT to be at the start like in Trentino, as that gave Marquez some room to attack. Still, I do think the mountain stages and even the MTT are good fits for his skills, and I'll already be very happy with a GC top-10 (sponsor goal). Competition is tough, and in Eritrea he only managed to finish eleventh, so I fear it will be a close. call.
Thanks for the preview, looking forward to the reports!
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| redordead |
Posted on 10-03-2021 08:06
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Pinot should win this 
@Gustav startlist is missing 
"I am a cyclist, I may not be the best, but that is what I strive to be. I may never get there, but I will never quit trying." - Tadej Pogačar
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| Gustavovskiy |
Posted on 10-03-2021 08:29
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Corrected
Thanks
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| TinxiaS |
Posted on 10-03-2021 12:21
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Domestique
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I made a complete mistake here with sending Modolo instead of Luka Mezgec to this race. I hope Pogačar will be able to get at least a point or a few in U25.
Thanks for the preview Gustavovskiy
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| aidanvn13 |
Posted on 10-03-2021 12:28
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Well, it's a win goal and we really need it after going bust in Eritrea.
Route is perfect for Thibaut and he should be fine in the TTT (after all he sort of was in Trentino).
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| Jakstar22 |
Posted on 10-03-2021 12:59
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If Wippert wears number 1, does that mean he's the best sprinter??
Nah good luck everybody! Going to be very interesting! Garby will be great to see. First big stage race for him I believe. Should be a great race (except that damn TTT)!!
Good luck!
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| Bjartne |
Posted on 10-03-2021 13:33
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We sent our B-squad here, no hopes whatsoever on points. All our leaders are in Japan atm :/ |
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| baseballlover312 |
Posted on 10-03-2021 15:52
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Stacked field here as expected. Warbasse has been amazing this year, but I can't expect him to do everything. All I can hope for is a solid and consistent effort that leads him to a decent GC spot. We went for TTT domestiques, so our three guys on the favorites list will be alone in the mountains. We'll see if that comes back to bite us.
Surprised to see that we are at the top of TTT average here. We went with TTT/flat doms over pure climbers, so I expected to be decent, but not first. With 7 guys, I doubt we'll beat P:A or Carrefour, but maybe we can gain back a tiny bit of time on some guys at least.
We have Bertilsson here as well, which iirc is his first leadership role since Tachira. He's been absolutely useless as a leadout man, so maybe this will reignite the fire in his legs. He has no train, but the TT riders are good protection. Broad sprint field means it's gonna just be luck of the draw, but I at least want him scoring in the 3 sprint stages.
Finally, I'd like to see more from Fabbro here. Eg has been decent, but Fabbro has underperformed in almost every race so far. Neither of them will compete for white with Ranaweera here, so visibility should come in other ways.
Thanks for a great preview!
Edit: Interesting factor that I hadn't considered is that a lot of the TTT doms might not make it to the final stage. Will make the race for the time limit pretty tense.
Edited by baseballlover312 on 10-03-2021 16:12
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy |
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| Fabianski |
Posted on 10-03-2021 16:01
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Our main focus here are definitely the flat stages, as we bring our complete sprint train Stocker - Cissé - Reinhardt, even augmented by Walscheid this time. I want to see Reinhardt in the fight for green, so I definitely expect some good stage results.
In the mountains, anything can happen. Manfredi usually does well in those MTTs, but not so much in "normal" mountain stages, which are rather Saggiorato's terrain. Mäder can hopefully provide them a little bit of support - but given that almost the enitre pack should arrive at the foot of those final climbs, the lack of proper mountain support shouldn't hurt us that much. A Top 10 GC place would be fine, and hopefully we'll improve our TTT performance a bit compared with Trentino.
Pinot should rock again, but it will be interesting to see if Ranaweera has found his top form by now.
Thanks for the preview, and good luck to everyone!
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| AbhishekLFC |
Posted on 10-03-2021 16:10
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Keinath and Boev both lower in their lists than I would have expected but the field is tough for sure. The TTT is not our forte but we hope Keinath can have a good ITT and keep the momentum through the mountain stages and we don't lose too much in the TTT. We also have hopes that Boev can keep up his good form.
Thanks for the preview Gustav
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| Ulrich Ulriksen |
Posted on 10-03-2021 22:07
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Second race where both our leaders are present. It worked out pretty well in Eritrea so let's hope for a repeat but not optimistic given the time trials and the likely sprint craziness.
Rest of the team backs Keough because we really don't have any strong TT or MT riders, although not sure why we didn't include at least one more of our mediocre MT guys to give Kuss a little help. But Keough is further up the favorite list so maybe the right call.
Would be nice if we get to form a train once just so I can have a shot of Frankovic in his Croatian NC jersey. I like the sprint field in that it isn't so large to swamp Keough but it is large enough that multiple teams should be chasing.
Thanks for the preview.
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| sammyt93 |
Posted on 11-03-2021 00:53
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Hopefully Ranaweera can put up a strong showing and challenge Pinot here as I really need him to step up and improve on his first outing.
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| Fabianski |
Posted on 11-03-2021 19:57
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Really good stage from Saggiorato, almost getting a point here. Manfredi was slightly disappointing, but it isn't that bad that Saggiorato is ahead of him in the GC, being by far the more solid rider anyway.
Mäder in 5th place in the U25 standings is nice, too, but I mostly hope to see him in breakaways.
Thanks for the report, and congrats to Nordica for a great Ratiy win. And the Pinot vs Ranaweera duel could get pretty interesting here...
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| Nemolito |
Posted on 11-03-2021 20:04
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Oof, disappointing by Marquez. Those differences don't mean that much on the two mountain finishes I guess (and hope, most of all  ), but still. I hope this weak start isn't a sign of what to expect from him in the coming days.
Thanks for the report, G. Nice read, until that penultimate photo  I hope now Guillén and/or Manarelli can score some points in the two coming stages! And like Fabianski said, the battle for the GC could get pretty interesting indeed
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| Ulrich Ulriksen |
Posted on 11-03-2021 22:53
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Nemolito wrote:
Those differences don't mean that much on the two mountain finishes I guess (and hope, most of all )
My sentiments exactly. 19th not great from Kuss but the time gaps are small and good days in the mountains can still yield a respectable GC.
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| baseballlover312 |
Posted on 11-03-2021 23:25
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Bittersweet to see Garby get a podium here. Of course I want him to succeed, but not against me!
Overall though, it was a very a solid start for our team, pretty much ideal. Warbasse put in the best time out of our 3 guys, so his leadership is ensured, but both Fabbro and Eg did quite well, with Eg definitely overachieving. Hopefully that means we're in good shape, and maybe we can hold that team classification all the way.
As Nemo said, the gaps are not that significant, but I'm always happy to see a positive beginning and a sign of good form.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy |
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| AbhishekLFC |
Posted on 12-03-2021 04:53
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Keinath doing ok but maybe losing a bit more time than we were hoping. Decent rides by Inkelaar and Bardet.
Congrats to Nordica and thanks for the report Gustav
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| sammyt93 |
Posted on 12-03-2021 09:29
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missing the GC lead by just 2 seconds is a shame, but it was a vey strong ride from Ranaweera, hopefully it's a sign he is in better shape than his last outing and that he is feeling up for the challenge of trying to match and hold off Pinot this time around.
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| aidanvn13 |
Posted on 12-03-2021 10:54
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Okay, so last year Pinot lost 34 seconds to Eastman and 24 seconds to Ratiy. He only lost the tour because of the team trial.
This time around he lost 16 seconds to Ratiy, so he seems to be in a great position again. Hope he does his thing in the coming stages and the domestiques can remain fresh for the TTT.
Nice report and congrats Nordica!
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